Abolicao – Flowering Judas [Cabin Floor Esoterica]/Xiphiidae – Transresonance Formation [Stunned]

Got two Jeff Astin (Tricorn & Queue, the Housecraft label) solo projects here. One from his more famous Xiphiidae solo moniker and another is his first release under the Abolicao name.
I’m starting with the Abolicao tape cause I’m fucking excited about it. This is probably the best work I’ve heard from Astin. When the tape begins to roll its just guitar as far as I can tell. What I like so much is there are only a couple things going on but they’re all so important. That, and the tape as a whole exudes atmosphere. Not in the lush, “atmospheric” sense but Flowering Judas produces a direct, isolated sense of space. The first side has a couple of sections pasted together and the second section is quite nice with a hollow guitar melody and incidental noises providing tactile sensations. It approaches drone, but the music breathes a bit more than drone does cause it doesn’t stack tons of sounds on top of each to achieve a singular sound. The tape takes pleasure in split seconds of silence and miniscule but constant and vital dynamic shifts. Towards the end of Side A finds Astin building a beautiful breeze of melodic fragments before a shift to the eerier end of things just before the side’s close. The second side has more warbling tape/strings and some of the best music of the tape comes right at the beginning of this side. The bulk of the side is this one long piece as far as I can tell so, needless to say, the side’s really stunning. There’s a lovely looped resonating of bass frequencies against various forms of palpable, physical percussive techniques applied to the guitar. It’s just stirring and gorgeous——and, as I mentioned before, always alive and evolving. Seamlessly from that previous skin comes a more rhythmic incarnation. I can’t quite a tell if it is or not (I lean towards “no”) but this sounds like field recordings of a forest or something. There’s an organic nature to the sounds and their organization. This fades leaving a guitar imitating wind chimes continuing the “natural” aesthetic. Cabin Floor Esoterica is the perfect label for this to be on cause that descriptor fits the tape so well and the camping themed artwork and brown painted tape complement the sounds perfectly. Really fantastic piece of work, particularly the second side.
The CD-r is split pretty cleanly down the middle with two 12ish minute tracks. Transresonance Formation sounds denser than the Bronze Hut tape I have from last year. It’s mostly airy groans piled on top of one another but it’s possible to pick out bits of guitar and field recordings/samples in the mix. Either that or my mind is playing tricks on me. The piece moves at a nice pace, slowly but constantly. It’s almost a river ride at a theme park or something where you bob around leisurely in swampy waters but all the while there’s a mechanism keeping everything tightly together. That idea carries over into the texture of the track as well because it sounds wet but not in the submerged sense that a lot of things are. I think there has to just be recordings of flowing water at work here, because that is one of strongest flavors the piece has and I’m scratching my head how someone could pull that off without using recordings directly of water. A sprinkle of hollow chimes at the end is a nice touch as well. The second untitled track is quite straightforwardly melodic. It enters with creaking metal and a looped keyboard melody with effected guitar augmenting the track too. The piece continues to glimmer for a good five minutes but backs off a little to reveal active bass frequencies chugging along underneath. With about 4 minutes to go, the sounds fade completely and a new section starts. It creeps slows through a swampy sunrise, eventually laying down subtle but creepy drones making my bedroom feel not quite right. A misty morning dawn for sure, but a poisonous one.
The Abolicao tape is still available and it obviously comes highly recommended. Transresonance Formation is gone from Stunned as you'd expect but plenty of distros still have copies.

OSR Tapes/Faux-Pas Recordings Round-up

This is my remaining stash of stuff from rad weirdo West Mass labels OSR Tapes and Faux-Pas recordings. There’s a tape and CD-r by OSR, a 3” from Faux-Pas and another tape that is a co-venture between the labels.
Having put out one of my favorite records of the year, the Horse Boys tape, I expect incredibly high quality from cassettes with the OSR brand. This tape by Sord, called Rebuking the Despoiler, does not disappoint in the least. Not sure who’s behind this tape but I’ll hazard a guess that OSR CEO Nals Goring is involved. There are seven tracks on the first side whose titles are scrawled and barely discernible on a small insert. The opening title track is basically just a 15 second intro of movie/TV dialogue samples, it’s pretty hilarious: “Handcuffs are a lot more comfortable than a casket, you know what I mean Pete?” “Thank You” is actually music though Sord often pushes the limits of the term as many in West Mass are apt to do. This track throws together a mellow piano workout with some sort of a wolverine vs. a trashcan noise. It’s a really clear track cause it has a lounge jazz feel while still sounding straight up home taper. “Kabuki of the Gods” is more samples, noise and strangled singing. “Jiggery Poker” is an odd concoction of looped noises with old horror movie organ. I can’t tell if the organ is sampled (could be) or they actually own a bitching organ like it. Continuing the haunted vibe there’s a few bit of whimpered shrieks. The track is a mess but totally great. The challenge, where Sord exceeds admirably, is that the track with all its randomness is constructed to be coherent and listenable. “Mommy Life” is another weird interlude of scratching contact mic’d whatnot. “Why this Court Keeps Rebuking” is extra warped with tape warble and sounds being made from mouths but that’s about as far as I can go to describe it. Totally fucked. “Defending the Realm” closes the side. It has an almost rock vibe to it which throws me for a loop after all the weird shit that precedes it. It sounds like it might be live or it was recorded on a Dictaphone in another room. It’s a great foggy, fuzzy haze of drums, guitar and someone freaking out on keyboards. The real jewel of the tape is the B side, a single pastiched piece called “Made in Ecuador 10-07.” It seems like its probably a mix of performed material and then material that was just recorded around Ecuador. One of my favorite parts is at the beginning which is a recording of some band combining traditional Ecuadorian music with jazz. It’s really brilliant. There bits of TV and radio spliced in as well as solo acoustic guitar work recorded in bustling places. It’s a fantastic side because a unique, lively vibe permeates the whole thing. The Ecuador tourist board should just start sending out this tape instead of brochure’s and people would start lining up to come. Another standout is a bitching solo accordion performance but there are so many awesome moments on here of all varieties you just gotta hear it. The whole side is an absolute pleasure to listen to. Worth picking up the tape for this side alone. Seriously.
Delving into even weirder territory is …Are Roan Stars (WTF is a “roan star”) by Nals vs. Nals. This CD-r as far as I can tell is a concept album, the concept being that Nals Goring and Nals Gorman are fighting through music. After the funny/creepy intro “We’re About Fight” where the two guys listen to a tape made by a girl named Bev. Contained on the tape is a long message that she is breaking with both of them. And then apparently they fight… So, what in the fuck is going on??! I have no idea but things only get weirder, some 8 year old kid talks indecipherably as Gorman has a conversation with him. I don’t know, it’s weird. As far as the musical content goes this album is pretty rad. It’s nutty and frantic and often extremely hard to wrap your head around but by the same token it’s full of great inventive shit. Probably hundreds source recordings are chopped splice with such a madcap frenzy that its nigh impossible to make sense of. The CD is surprisingly listenable such as the J Dilla/Ghostface referencing “Whip You with a Strap (Gorman).” “Suck My Kiss (Goring)” is the only track (of 20) to make it past 4 minutes. Its much more low key (though still plenty weird) than the rest of CD but there’s a nice passage that moves like a loping hip hop beat with looped drums and brass and a renegade piano before spiraling off in a static skronk direction. “Suck My Kiss (Gorman)” by contrast is a quarter of the length and is an acoustic strum and sing affair being eaten away by plunderphonic termites. Recommended for anyone that likes their music scrambled beyond recognition.
Shamrock (co-released by Faux-Pas and OSR) is a c-21 split between Stonedwall Jackson, credited as Rusty “Heroin” Spoons and Sam “Huffin’” Gas Can (the perpetrator of the Faux-Pas label) and Heat Wilson, which weirdly isn’t credited. My guess is that Nals Goring is part of this too cause its got the same kind of scrambled tape mash he’s usually up to. Heat Wilson’s track is on the first side. It begins rather nicely with an amazingly catchy looped acoustic guitar jam and some latin-ish sample before getting into slurred tape warble. It eventually finds it way out of that forest with a woman trying to wake up someone up (“It’s time to wake the fuck up now”) only to find its way right back in. There’s an almost gamelan pitched-down rubber band percussion thing. There’s garbled conversation and god knows what. Weird fuckin’ cartoonish Native American-styled drums and flute chants, kinda like the alternate path The Skaters could have taken 5 years ago. It ends with a lullaby of all things. The side is just all over the place.
Stonedwall Jackson’s side is less sample driven but still works with the sound collage style. Their side starts off with various guitars and bells and a flute. Before long, they’re a ramshackle family band with a nice little thrift store stomper reminding me a little of Seattle act Forrest Friends. A new guitar/harmonica jam sprouts from the ashes of the previous. A bit rudimentary but pleasant enough to listen to leading to the next section which is mostly percussive with chimes and such save for a sloshed voice slobbering all over the tape and gets really urgent all of a sudden. I think there might be an autoharp in there too. The next is a guitar and glockenspiel duet, some says something about corn chips and poof the tape is over.
The last release to get to is The Story of Artificial Peace, a solo work by Sam Gas Can. I guess Artificial Peace is some made up punk band from the 80s or something and there’s a bit of text telling the story of them with the 3” CD-r but as far as I can tell the CD-r doesn’t really have much to do with Artificial Peace. But maybe I’m missing something. Anyway the first of the five tracks is “Political Song” which begins slowly with chiming percussion and rattles along tactilely for a while. Before being rudely interrupted by a blaring keyboard and distorted voice which cuts out leading into a capella song about hating Christmas, being happy, impressing other people and “knocking on the door of suicide.” Bizarre in a whole different way than the other stuff in this review. “You are Not a Good Friend” is percussion rattle, backwards recordings and a muddled voice singing. This switches to an organ interlude, some whispering “You son of an asshole” and then another a capella thing but this time it’s a falsetto singing “Ooh, I love the baby” over and over and the speed of the tape is messed around with. “Cut the Shit (Out of my Fur)” sounds almost like The Microphones at first except everything is played backwards. Then there’s some backwards screaming and whatnot that gives me flashbacks of Twin Peaks. The first three seconds of “Oops! I’m at the Wrong College” are seriously amazing. Its just this brief beat but it sounds so rad I always hope its gonna pop up later in the track for longer than a couple seconds but sadly it never does. Though the ghost of it pops up during a minimal electronics workout during the rest of track. The track is pretty much straight up electronics the whole way through except for live drums that join up in the final minute. Things get really jammin’ when that happens. There’s a nice interplay with the live rhythm and the rigid rhythm the electronics are pumping out. “Hostility is like a Psychic Boomerang” is a short coda of weirdness compiling a lot of the previous styles of the CD.
I think that everything is available still save for the solo Gas Can release. Shamrock is available from both labels but you’re gonna have to hit up just OSR for the other two. I like the tapes best probably, particularly that Sord tape but whatever you get from this crew is sure to intrigue and befuddle.

Bipolar Bear/Talbot Tagora – Abstract Distractions [olFactory]

Hooray! A second 10” has entered my collection. This time it’s split between LA’s Bipolar Bear and local (Seattle) crew Talbot Tagora. Makes sense to put these two together; the bands are doppelgangers in a way, both are guitar/bass/drums trios and share a penchant for alliteration and straight up, no frills rock which I’m pretty much always in the mood for.
BB takes the first side, leading off with arpeggio driven “Cape Verde.” There’s a vaguely mathy quality to the guitar playing but it avoids the pitfalls of that particular style by being catchy, melodic and most importantly fun. I don’t even know if there’s a single chord in here yet it still manages to “rock” pretty hard. From what I gather listening to this record, the Bipolar Bear “sound” is the solid rhythm section keeping it pretty simple, while the guitarist/singer (billed here simply as Paul) goes wild, cramming in as many riffs as he can all while contributing distorted vocals as well. “Algiers” will instantly be your favorite from the side. Bipolar Bear rides a fantastically catchy chord progression, rearranging/reworking it a number of times before a pseudo-Indian-ish/mild mannered Dead Kennedys guitar lead starts in like a seizure. “Library” is more of the mathy style as “Cape Verde.” It isn’t successful to the degree that “Verde” was but it’s got a nice faux-Beach Boys chorus. “March of Mudmen” is fast paced with irreverent guitar lines flitting about until an unexpected, and frankly bizarre, breakdown and tempo shift. It has never not caught me off-guard which is respectable. And even though it’s literally dizzying, it has nice melodic touches as well. “Pixote” only lasts for about 80 seconds but it makes the most of its time. It runs through a number of different parts, always returning to the great central riff.
I was happy to see Talbot Tagora on this split cause I’ve never actually heard any of their recorded material (though I have seen a show at their house.) TT’s contrast to BB’s style is noticed instantaneously in “Internet Fixture.” There’s more strumminess present in Talbot Tagora’s music. Although, even as I’ve just written that; the second track is pretty much all riff driven. “We Live in sack” leads off with a great riff which moves into another great descending figure. The track has a nice easy going, head bobbing kinda vibe. Firmly rhythmic but not aggressively so. “Black Diamond” is lead by effected guitar slashing one chord over and over along with a nice vocal line. The repetitive strikes of that one chord manage to fill out the space which is really strange and cool and the melody is left solely on the vocalist’s shoulders. It sounds a bit iffy on paper but they pull it off and it totally works. “The Weather Man” is probably my favorite track of the record. There’s not too much to say about it another than it’s a great stripped down rock song. It’s catchy, upbeat and makes you want to listen to it over and over. Talbot Tagora mostly surf along on a great chord progression but they wrap up the track by laying into one chord over and over until the tape’s switched off. I should add that the Tagora side is really well sequenced cause each track one-ups the previous song.
Now that I’m thinking about it this is probably a good record for summer, something you can hangout and drink Ice Tea too. It’s upbeat but in a really relaxed way. Just a nice rock record to chill out with. If that sounds up your alley give this a look. Still available and comes with a digital download code.

Dylan Nyoukis/Nackt Insecten – Split [Sick Head Tapes]/Astral Social Club/Wounded Knee – Split [Sick Head Tapes]

When I was in Glasgow I met Ruaraidh Sanachan a.k.a. Nackt Insecten and operator of the sick Sick Head Tapes label. I took full advantage of the situation and grabbed the latest four from his label. I’m gonna cover the splits today which make a hell of a case for the UK being the place to be for experimental music right now.
Surprisingly enough, I’ve never heard any of Dylan Nyoukis’s solo stuff but if this side is any indicator, he may be at his best alone and in the zone. "I'll Give You a Translation World in Which You're a Rotting Corpse of a Run-over Dog in Some Ditch" walks a bunch of fine lines: hypnotic/creepy, feral/mellow, and the list goes on. I’m not certain what Nyoukis is using here but I’ll hazard a guess its microphones and probably some tapes too creating a drifting, lethargic warble and klang. Could just be a keyboard too I suppose but that’s beside the point. The point is that this piece is sensational. I haven’t heard anything this good from the boombox evensong genre probably since when The Skaters were at their peak a few years back. The piece re-molds itself constantly but retains a select few elements making all the transitions fluid and seamless. Really, really fantastic stuff.
The only other Insecten stuff I’ve heard was a cool tape of vocal fuzz a while back on Beyond Repair. So, I was surprised to find that Ruaraidh’s side, “The Telepathic Jackal,” was all synth. There’s some squiggly oscillator but it’s mostly fat, dense grooves and melodic keyboard trills. It’s thick, pulsing and crunchy but still totally bright and grooving. I’ve read his stuff described as sci-fi but this sounds like the future more than anything else to me. It invests a really vibrant humanity into a bunch of synthetic sounds rather than being a mind number. This is as active and dynamic as music gets. When I listen to this I always have a big ol’ smile plastered on my face like an idiot. Really amazing split and way too short!
It’s good to see Neil Campbell’s Astral Social Club back in the cassette saddle (when was the last time?) I am glad that this is on tape cause it softens ASC’s sound in a really lovely way. Anyhow, his side is cut in to three pieces; “King Speed Slush” lurches forth first with the mechanical space zombie grind of whatever sampler/synth/guitar palette Campbell employs. All manners of squelch, crunch and clicks before launching into “Morning Fog Vurt,” a toy keyboard demo-esque bass/drum machine thing—groovy with a slight cheese factor—before breaking down. The tracks blur together a bit but I think the start of the side’s centerpiece “Stacking Stacking” is signified by the mellow lull which builds to a massive roar over 15 plus minutes. To digress briefly, Spider Stacy from The Pogues helps out this track which I think is so goddamn cool! Never thought I’d be reviewing a tape with a Pogue on it. Anyway, back to the music. The piece initially works with a couple of glistening synth parts. Mechanical mist to get you primed for the crown jewel to follow. The piece keeps stacking, stacking swelling to Bower-esque proportions of raw distortion but always retains the melodic current that surges through it, peaking with a particularly beautiful and earth shaking crescendo with a looped bass part and even more searing layers of organ and feedback. The piece looms with a strange lethargic triumph, splintering and consuming each remaining particle of atmosphere in its vicinity. It feels like being steamrolled at 2 mph. An utterly incredible piece of work.
I’d never heard of Wounded Knee before but apparently it’s a dude from Edinburgh and his name is Drew just like me! (eerie…) Silliness aside, he serves up an epic half hour called “Lucier Rising” and it’s pretty damn great! It’s an all vocal thing but instead of using loops he uses delay pedals with really long decay times. The result is a brilliant piece in a constant state of flux. There is a strong sense of rhythm which is integral to its success, various styles of vocal melodies folding into the rhythmic framework so the initial section of sound evaporates but its essence is carried forth with new forms being created. I don’t mean to give the impression the piece has the same vibe throughout. Though, it moves in such an organic way that the transition from point A to B is almost imperceptible. It’s like a geological structure where over a length of time various minerals and so forth cement with each other forming a rich and often beautiful whole. Check this guy’s stuff out pronto.
Both these splits are highly, highly recommended. They each come in those thick, Disney-type cases with nice art by Ruaraidh. I especially love the psychedelic brain aneurysm/vomit on the DN/NI cover.

Extra Sexes – Gash Bulb [Skrot Up]

New tape by AG and Bryan Davis of Boy+Girl on the Danish label Skrot Up, whom my first encounter with was in my friend’s car when we blasted FNU Ronnies’ utterly bitching Golem Smoke EP on Skrot Up. This project is just a tad more relaxed than the furious freakfucks of their B+G moniker.
Gash Bulb is a mix of jacked samples and tumbling synth ditties. “Horn Rimmed Mind” is one of the latter and one of my favorites from the tape. Groovy, lurching drum machine and layered synth lines iced with manipulated vocal gibberish. Manages to hypnotize while getting your foot tapping. Sloshed bliss. The Davis boys could have put out a tape full of jams like this and I’d have been pleased as pie. However, those dudes are never content to just hang out and jam when there’s shit to be fucked up. “Gap/Solvent Bone Remorse” is a chopped up butt rock track. I don’t dig on cookie monster vocals (as previously mentioned elsewhere on this website) so this piece isn’t really up my alley. Although I’d rather hear this genre through Extra Sexes eyes than its own. The second of the piece, the “Solvent” part, is a sparse voice-like synth piece before glitching out at the end. “Front/Talk Some Sense” has cut up noise and samples before whipping out an outrageously rad (and zonked) hip hop/new wave mashup. Whatever this “ooh la la la” pop song they’re sampling is, I want it. “Languorous Pits” is a thudding drum machine and knob twiddling track that turns out nicely due to its rhythmic focus. “How Can We Stop/Suggestion” mashes more hip hop samples with and a 60s psych pop song. It has a great push/pull rhythmic tension before shifting gears to the lethargic homemade disco territory of the first track. There’s still a side to go and they’ve already covered so much ground.
Second side opener “Limited Virility with Classical Bitch” returns to the hip hop briefly (but to great effect) with scratchy electronics over top before launching into more glitched butt rock stuff leads to a loop of a slashin’ primal garage rock riff that Extra Sexes deconstruct a bit ultimately leading to a chopped up and rebuilt classical symphony. The last part is quite an interesting reimagining of classical music, ending with a ten second basement party rave up. “Positive Survey” is more crunchy synth/beats stuff. “8 Ways to Break It” is more hip hop stuff with the DJ playing fast and loose with the turn table speed. It’s scrambled stuff but finds a beat eventually. “Piano Gash” is among the most interesting pieces on the tape—an avant-garde piano piece composed from sampling one or many avant-garde piano pieces. As with the rest of the tape, the focus of “Piano Gash” is rhythm and repetition so the piece sounds strangled and sharply positioned/contorted which miraculously with works with the looseness of the source material. “Screaming Over Bulbs” is the unexpected finale, about twenty seconds of looped metalcore.
This is a cool tape, particularly if your into fucked samples. It’s been consistently engaging all the times I’ve listened to it and Extra Sexes is doing something different from a lot of people putting out tapes.
Comes with an uncomfortably frightening j-card and a proof of purchase!! I’m gonna start saving these up, I heard its only 50 proofs of purchase to get Skrot Up brand walkie talkies.

Electric Annihilation/Various Artists – Psyched Punch [DNT]

(FINALLY got this transcribed from my journal)
This is the debut issue of Electric Annihilation; a new zine edited and published by Tynan Krakoff, CEO of DNT Records…
Electric Annihilation has been a nice companion while riding the London Underground. The cover feature is an interview with Sun Araw who is of course blowing up right now and has been for awhile. I haven’t followed his music too much (though his side of the Predator Vision split is pretty rad) but the interview was interesting. Because of how decentralized the “underground” is, its cool to hear someone just chatting about what’s going on around them as Cam Stallones does here. It was interesting to learn Sun Araw was just kind of stumbled upon while Stallones was working on Magic Lantern stuff and then became equally as big a deal.
Shawn Reed (Night People/Raccoo-oo-oon) discusses how Wet Hair went from being a dark solo project before Ryan Garbes (also of Raccoo-oo-oon and the unreasonably awesome Trash Dog) hopped aboard somehow leading to their debatably tropical sound (Reed ain’t having it). There’s a close-up of his gear on the back page, so you too can sound just like Wet Hair kids! Their first DNT release, a VHS, is due this year.
There’s also an interview with John Olson, pictured sporting a rad American Tapes tee and Frankenstein monster of a sax. Olson discusses the small but fertile Michigan scene and laments the days when Wolf Eyes could play shows with White Stripes and Slumber Party without it seeming weird--I agree those were the days indeed.
Thurston Moore and Henry Rollins are asked about their thoughts on today’s underground. Moore compares it to the 80s “noise scene” and extols the sonic virtues of cassettes. The quick interview with Henry Rollins was interesting cause I had no idea he was into noise stuff. To be totally honest, I’ve never really understood why people are interested in him as a personality or why he has a show on IFC or why he randomly pops in movies playing SWAT personnel. Though he has occasionally dropped gems like “if I had the money, I’d pay Bono a million dollars a day to not make music.” Anyway, enough doggin’ on the guy, I have more respect for him after this interview. He discusses American Tapes, as Olson and Moore did—an obvious topic of interest for EA. Rollins asserts what noise is doing is what punk should have done. He’s not only impressed by the “zero interest in MTV” but compares its vision to bop. He ends the interview with another gem, “music survived the Reagan administration, Creed and Nickelback, so it can survive anything else thrown at it I reckon.”
Elsewhere in the issue, Nomen Dubium and Steve Hauschildt (of Emeralds) both discuss how they got to where they’re going musically. Although, the article I’ve found myself returning to the most is "The Last Man" by Jon Isaac (of Really Coastal tapes). It’s an engaging, if a bit unfocused, rumination on how listeners come to define and order sound. He moves through childhood anecdotes as well as pointing out examples in the current underground, particularly the vocabulary that small-press labels have developed to promote their merchandise. There is a pretty funny anecdote regarding Robedoor in there too. It was really great to have a non-interview article in the mix. Hopefully Jon Isaac continues to write for EA and maybe a few other writers join up to do other columns or whatever.
Another section I hope EA continues and expands is "Scene Reports." Sam Goldberg gives a rundown of some crazy shit goin’ down in Cleveland, Shawn Reed reps the new and old blood in Iowa City, and Matthias Andersson (of the Release the Bats label) gives a thorough, detailed portrait of everything rad going down in Gothenburg. I jotted down a bunch of Swedish names to check out, one of which, Attestupa, has a DNT LP on the way. Readers are encouraged to send in letters and scene reports, so everyone out there, get writing about your scene!
I enjoyed this issue and I think Electric Annihilation will only get better. Also it was a bold move not to include any reviews in the zine, the staple of every music mag. Its available from the DNT and Electric Annihilation websites and its also stocked by various record stores and distros.
DNT also put out the Psyched Punch double cassette comp that collects 3 sides of out of print DNT material and a side of new stuff to celebrate its 3 year anniversary (just a tad late.) The tape starts spooling with a vintage Robedoor track “Tribal Rites.” All militant, pounding drums, angsty wordless vocals and a whole lot of fuzz bleeding everywhere. Quite a good track that transports me back to 2006 when I first heard the band. Forbici is next with “Remote Concentrator.” Never heard of Forbici before but apparently they released something on DNT. This track is wiggly, directionless electronics—decent but not totally my speed. German makes the first of two appearances here with the minute long “Vein,” a surely grooving interlude. The Warmth/Yellow Swans 7inch (which was one of the earliest AuxOut reviews) is captured here in its entirety. Check the old review if you want more details but Warmth conjures a sonic bog and Yellow Swans are brighter than usual and as awesome as ever. Also, I finally learned what the Warmth track is called (“Demode”) cause the info is hidden behind a blotch of blue ink on the 7inch. German returns with “Neun,” a track of boisterous drumming and clanging, ghostly thumb piano. “Ironlung Wheeze” by Dead/Bird is the side’s finale. A bit like the Warmth joint but full of sputtering synthesizers and dying machines.
“Desert City Summer” by Nomen Dubium kicks off Side B in style. I remember a ND tape coming out a while ago on DNT a while back but I never checked it out and, man, I wish I had. This track is one of best of the comp. It’s incredibly lush and melodic and gorgeous. Really knocked my socks off when I first heard it. Wonderfully layered with some of the strata being soothing and other bits being of a more chugging nature but all blending beautifully. This cat has a VHS due later on DNT; I’m so there. UK crew Jazzfinger contributes a piece called “Birth of the Knife” and believe me it fucking sounds like the birth of a knife. Violent, sharp, searing, grinding, serrated, metallic—all belied by a lilting reed organ which as far as I can tell is the only sound source. Unassumingly but unflinchingly bloodthirsty. Plankton Wat contributes a track of winding reversed guitar called “Translucent Nights” and Acre closes the side doing his thing with unchanging walls of sound.
The final side of the reissued material begins with an untitled track by Mudboy. Since I’ve heard all DNT Mudboy releases save for Livish I can deduce this comes from that. The track features signature stacked organ lines and waves crashing in the background. A nice, borderline meditative track. Super Minerals make their first appearance with the title-track from The Piss, one of the most apocalyptic moments from the tape’s apocalyptic half-hour. Swollen sores of fuzz bear down on oppressive shrieks, creaks and rattling before they approach melody in the final moments. Quilts contribute the 15 minute “Pink Hotel” from their split with Quintana Roo way back from ’06 if I remember correctly. This comp is interesting cause it only looks back 3-4 years, but you can see how quickly the underground changes. Quilts, for instance, put out some cool stuff awhile back but have since dissipated (I guess) cause I haven’t heard or thought about them lately. Anyhow, “Pink Hotel” is a sweet track, if on the long side. There’s a lot of space in the piece, silence is poked through with plinking (toy?) piano, manipulated vocal slur and a static drone—all of which are run through delay pedals. By the end they have scraped together a subtle but persuasive melody.
Moving on the side of new material... The biggest surprise for me was the Blank Realm song “Cats on the Edge.” The bits and pieces I’d heard of Blank Realm was fine, folky free-psych stuff but it didn’t leave much of a mark. This track however is utterly slammin’. It’s nearly 8 minutes of mellow, ravin’ 60sish organ driven psych rock. This track is just the epitome of cool. The band constructs the song really well, perfectly balancing surfy spy guitar, heavy organ riffage, a solid rhythm section and a touch of wispy vox and keeping it all moving with chugging grooviness with effective dynamic shifts. Basically, I never want this track to end. It’s in a fist fight with Nomen Dubium for my favorite new discovery. Plankton Wat contributes another short track which weirdly enough has a lot of vocals in it in addition to the guitar. Super Minerals return with an awesome track “Purple Gravity Spindles.” It features the Minerals in total spirit summoning mode. After a bombastic opening, a good chunk is pretty quiet with a lonely flute until Phil and Will bring on heaps and heaps of lush, living sound. Really transcendent and frighteningly beautiful. I don’t know anything about Birdcatcher but they close with “Dusk.” It’s a good track similar to Super Minerals with murky flute loops (part of a complete breakfast) and bowed something-or-others creating a real doomy vibe.
The comp is already sold out (my bad for taking so long to actually get this online) but it’s limited to 100 so I’m sure a copy or two can still be found in distros. Good luck!

Snowstorm – Snowstorm [Malleable]

I'm wrapping up my stay in London preparing for my journey elsewhere. I'm not sure what the internet situation is going to be like over the next month so I can't say how often this site will be updated. I'm not planning on going on hiatus or nothing but just letting you know posting will be scattered. I've got some reviews written in a notebook that I need to get around to transcribing into a digital format but I wanted to get a couple more up before I head out tomorrow. Pardon the interruption, the review starts now.
I got a couple of things from Malleable records in Philadelphia who had a hand in two LPs I dug last year by Mincemeat or Tenspeed and Embarker. Keeping consistent with the other stuff I heard from the label, this full length 45rpm 7inch (12 songs) is pretty nuts. Snowstorm, also hailing from Philly, is a bass/drums crew which, now that I’m thinking about it, is one of the most consistent instrument lineups. Lightning Bolt, The Pope, Temperatures, Godheadsilo etc. etc. they are all varying degrees of rad. Only lame one I can think of is that Death From Above 1979 band and they have a dumbass name so it's to be expected. Anyway, that was a round about way of saying add Snowstorm to the list.
So there’s twelve tracks on this thing and they don’t have names or any of that, so in order to keep me from going nuts over reviewing a 7 minute record I’m just gonna treat it as sides. This stuff is pretty thrashin’ but always manages to find a groove even if it only riffs on it for 10-15 seconds. The bass shifts violently between ice pick feedback (trademark of the Malleable crowd) and surprisingly melodic, speed-sludge passages. There are remnants of the bands I mentioned earlier, but Snowstorm is on a frantic kick all their own.
The second side begins with pummeling in mind. With dynamics akin to harsh noise before lauching briefly into a rollicking stoner riff, then breaking down, speeding up and doing all sorts of sonic gymnastics. Awesome and hyperactively epic. The side continues with the same jacked up intensity, mauling your face but allowing for occasional gasps for air. They totally outdo themselves on this side, I’m constantly being crushed in new ways. Rules.
The record blows right past me, where each track is good but they never pass the threshold length where they get stuck in your mind. They drop catchy parts but they don’t repeat ‘em. It makes the record more of an experience than a set of songs.
Pretty killer record overall if you're down with this sort of thing (who isn’t??) and looks-wise this thing is a beauty. Off-white vinyl and killer vellum artwork/sleeve. Still in print!

Steve Gunn/Shawn David McMillen – End of the City [Abaddon/Abandon Ship/DNT]

I’ve been playing this one a lot on this wobbly, crap turntable I procured from an acquaintance here. I’m wondering how the experience will change once I return home and play it on a turntable that rotates in a perfect circle. Hopefully not too much cause as is this record might just be my favorite LP from the year so far. A trifecta of labels put End of the City out—the always fantastic DNT, Abandon Ship which this is their first LP (congratz!) and Abaddon which seems to be a brand new label.
The two artists’ work compliments each others’ really well here. Their sounds are similar enough that listening to the sides back to back feels coherent but Gunn and McMillen bring totally different ideas to the table.
This is my first experience with solo material from Gunn (he’s part of the killer group GHQ) and this does not disappoint. He showers us in pleasant vibes contributing a lovely raga-lite track. A groaning organ/sitar/something loop spirals around as he tears it up on guitar. Shakers come in later and they’re a real subtle but effective addition and tablas join the ranks afterwards. It’s fairly repetitive but not boring the least in. Gunn lays down a real nice solo towards the center too. For a while its only one track of guitar but there gets to be about 3 or 4 creating little, consonant webs. A renegade sitar pops up too and the whole thing ultimately wraps with a nice bed of loops. Beautiful stuff and effortlessly good, mellow vibes, a much sunnier experience than GHQ’s bleak, harrowing (and excellent) journeys into raga-drone.
I think Gunn’s side was probably my favorite initially but I think McMillen has swung me to his side the aisle. While Gunn worked very strictly with one sound, McMillen’s side constantly moves through many rooms of sound on his side. Beginning with a junk store instrument pile-up and almost immediately giving way to an amazing, creepy piano/thumb piano duet, augmented by the occasional hollow floor tom. After electronic scribbling, the piano returns full force, barely on this side of tonal, against a chirping cricket-style electronic melody. So then there’s an amazing evensong choral bit with the angry crickets still in tact and weird field recording rumbling around. Just beautiful, eerie stuff. Air raid sirens and all kinds of shit is in here; it’s nuts. A keyboard/guitar duet grows out of the last part with some kind of spoken word/poem reading and sitar in there too. All of a sudden the crickets get groovy against a bevy of sounds until a harmonica takes the lead and piano follows suit briefly unleashing an awesome suspense movie type melody. So what next? Where else is he gonna go? The answer is a path to a vintage era Skaters thing with distorted vocals, hand drums and a jiggy spirit flute. The whole ordeal ends unassumingly with a brief jam on a guitar that has a bunch of shit stuck between its strings. Oh yeah, there’s a crow cawing in there too… The question I keep asking myself is who is this guy? Why have I not heard of him before and how did this jumble of sound collapse under its own weight? The most that I’ve found is he’s a sometimes collaborator of Warmer Milks, which I confess I’m not too keen on. But I’ll be seeking out more of this guys stuff anyway.
The LP comes in a pro-printed sleeve with excellent artwork by Mary Kidd and a full size insert. DNT’s copies are gone but it was still in print at Abandon Ship and Abaddon last I checked. Edition of 500. Recommended.

Blood on Tape – Language & Movement [Reverb Worship]

Newish disc from Texan drone crew Blood on Tape on UK label Reverb Worship. They put out their debut tape last year which was a pretty damn good first set of drones and this is their second release——a 24 minute piece.
A sparse beginning of silence and birds leads into good ol’ electric drones slowly curling their tentacles around the emptiness. I think I may have written this before but Blood on Tape stretches a little into a lot without it wearing thin. Only a handful of elements are operating at a given time but they create a very full sound, one of the keys being that there are always well-positioned pieces of melody springing up at different moments. This piece has a fair amount of percussion as well, I think coming solely from cymbals. The combination of swelling, cavernous drones and the crashing cymbals actually creates some really epic moments with one cymbal almost sounding like a gong. There is a rather thunderous finale of sorts that leads into a new section of two guitars. The two guitars work around a melodic arpeggio, very gradually morphing into new melodies. Things just get more and more lush until a bass guitar (maybe?) starts stomping heavily underneath it all, turning a meditation into a procession, making the piece into a simultaneously relaxing and harrowing journey.
Another solid outing by these guys and it looks like they've got a few new things on the horizon as well. A lot of people have been moving closer and closer to new age territory so it is nice to see some people still manipulating pure ephemeral auras.
Limited to 47 copies and still in print.

Locrian – Drenched Lands [At War With False Noise/Small Doses]

Killer new full length by the new future of Chicago now that Obama has moved out. Lucky for you all, it is pro-pressed so it’s still in print as I write this which happens about 12% of the time.
Every new thing I hear from Locrian is consistent with the greatness of their past stuff but the duo’s work is also getting tighter and more seamless. Refined isn’t the right word but now that they’ve burrowed out their hole in the earth they’re smoothing out all the rough edges. Don’t get me wrong, they are still dishing out planet-sized sonic offerings but they’ve become even more dense and massive.
Anyhow, let’s actually talk about the music. “Obsolete Elegy in Effluvia and Dross” is more like an intro than a full piece, but it deserves to be a bit longer. Based around a two-chord progression and ever so gradual, disembodied vocals it’s a pretty hypnotic piece. A beautiful keyboard part only furthers this at the end then we’re instantly transported to the alternate universe of “Ghost Repeater” which is real hypnotic as well but not in a pretty way. Putting it bluntly, “Ghost Repeater” is the jam. It’s ten minutes long, but as far as I’m concerned it’s the hit single of the bunch. A bass throb runs the course of the piece and a long two-note synth part with menace to spare, casts a shadow of unease over everything. It’s like casting a shadow over the biggest, blackest fuckin’ cloud you’ve ever seen. It can be none more black. The track really knots up your stomach and puts you into a strange submissive state, like this thing is freaking the shit out of you but you are totally under its spell. Some sort of sonic Stockhausen syndrome or something. When feedback-ridden guitars show up, the monster’s momentum only increases. You gotta hear this track, totally essential to your life. Anyway, “Ghost Repeater” is the peak but the other stuff’s all quality too. “Barrne Temple Obscured by Contaminated Fogs” whatever the hell that is, features an effective, chemically unbalanced organ bit along with pervasive noise and anguished screaming, which never really has the effect on me it’s supposed to. I like the second half a bit more cause it dials down the screaming a bit so it melds more with the mess of organ notes and guitar parts. “Epicedium” is downright serene with mellow, auto-panned organ and clean guitar arpeggios which occasionally nudge the piece in more dissonant directions. It continues this way for nearly half the track until a two ton fuzzbomb is dropped. Despite the heavy barrage of distortion the piece stays pretty put picks up a newfound sense of urgency, due especially to some fantastic melodies played by an echoing, clean-toned guitar which gets to go solo at the end for a moment. A great, melodically complex work. A tolling bell opens up closer “Obsolete Elegy in Last Concrete.” Searing guitar feedback and sustained organ join it as is Locrian’s custom. The guitar takes about this staggered, juddering bass riff and everything gets real metal. Other tracks of guitar swell around it and I think some more organ is added as well. In the final minutes the duo returns to the chords of the first track making for a beautifully transcendent, rising-from-the-ashes vibe. Quite elegiac just as the title suggests and a damn fine way to end it all.
Its nice cause Locrian’s recent, sold-out LP Greyfield Shrines is on here in full as a totally bitchin' bonus track so it’s a total twofer. The CD is done up nice in one of those pro-printed arigato packs I think they’re called and the CD is all black with an embossed “Locrian”/pentagon on it. Comes with a nice insert/booklet too. One of the better records of year so far.
On a related note, Locrian’s putting on a noise/black metal festival with some others in Chicago called Matchitehew Assembly. Locrian, Bone Awl (yes!), Sword Heaven, Burial Hex and many others are playing so it looks sweet. It happens in a few weeks so check it out if you’re in the area. Info here

Maths Balance Volumes – Tried to Make a Call [Bum Tapes]/Rahdunes – Drink and Drive or Smoke and Fly [Bum Tapes]

I took full advantage of my temporary UK residence to check out Bum Tapes, a label I’d been eyeing for a little while but shied away from as I do too often from foreign labels cause of exchange rates/shipping costs... because I'm a cheap bastard. Over here though, these things are dirt cheap, 3 pounds post paid in the UK. That’s less than five bucks! Anyway, I recommend all you Americans out there to take advantage of the fallen exchange rates while you can. Anyhow, this is part 1 of my Bum Tapes report.
It seems with every Maths Balance Volumes release I hear, I’m more and more convinced they’re one of the best bands operating today. The magic concoction they brew (however it is done) is equal parts pop genius and sloshed basement crawl. The weirdest stuff is put on the first side of this tape, which I guess is called “Tried to Make a Call” though the second side isn’t mentioned. The first piece is a stumbling rag of sauntering carnival organ, a pair of slowed down mumbling voices and found percussion. It sounds like a wreck, and is in a way, but the group’s talent lies in making the most bizarre combos of sounds utterly catchy, if lethargic as well. The second piece is no less abstract but brings a heavy groove. It’s almost like a thrift store Black Dice (in their “dance” phase) but MBV uncover something much more strange and indescribable than Black Dice have or ever will. Based around a looped bass tone, a bunch of unidentified sounds are assembled around in unexpected but well thought out ways.
The B-side is basically a lo-fi pop song and it rules! It's mostly just an unfailingly catchy chord progression and indecipherable muttered vocals. Those elements form the skeleton of the song. Augmenting it is a lovely but subtle keyboard that pops up at the end of each verse. There’s also an amplified metallic something that provides a vague but oh so important percussive element and a bit of growling percussive banging comes in near the end. Even at ten minutes, this thing seems pretty damn essential. Probably the best argument for a cassingle I’ve ever heard, though it wasn’t marketed as such. One of those I always flip over as soon as it ends.
My buddy Adam told me about how good Rahdunes are a while back and, silly me, I’m just now taking his advice, and oh how right he is. The accurately titled first side “Sounds” is a pulsing masterpiece of drone. Despite heavy, throbbing synthesizer pulsations there’s a leisurely feel, like riding a train where you glide along but still feel the machinery grinding beneath you. The texture complements the vibe quite well, lush but synthetic——and with too much gravity to be considered new age.
The flipside is just as good. Two tracks are listed (“Acid Meter” and “Eruption Factor”) but it sounds like one seamless piece to my ears. Maybe I’m reading it wrong and its “Acid Meter Eruption Factor”? Aww, well, I’ll let that be a mystery for the ages. Guest drums, supplied by Nick St. Mary, turn the piece into a rollicking drone rock affair of thunderous proportions. One of the heaviest hazes I’ve ever been caught in. The drums drop out leaving thick, steaming frequencies to rise. Subdued drums return until the smoky vibes evaporate. Excellent tape.
Both tapes are still available but way too limited with nice artwork as well. Rahdunes is an edition of 40 and the Maths Balance Volumes tape is limited to 50. Can’t go wrong picking up either so I suggest you get both.

Juan Matos Capote – Jabal [Circuit Torçat]

Jabal is the debut release from Circuit Torçat, a new label out of Barcelona. This tape is quite good, if a bit too short.
The first piece “Goat Scape” begins with a strong but not harsh hi-pitched sine tone, which is modulated by other frequencies. Though there are brief flashes of melody, the track mostly focuses on textures brought about by combining various frequencies. By the end there’s a loop of a vocal-esque melody through I can’t tell if its from a human source or not. The title track also starts off with a loop of a manipulated sine tone. There’s another loop, reminiscent of turning a tape recorder on and off, that provides a percussive base as sustained, harmonized sine waves take over and the side ends.
The other side contains two pieces as well. “Tide” features sine tones also but over a shuddering bed of lower pitches. Over that base, various other fragments of other sounds are structured. They are probably all of electronic origin but some sound quite percussive causing the piece to scrape along capably. The finale, and my favorite, “Star Dust” reminds me a bit of the lo-fi new age thing going on now a la Dolphins into the Future. Despite a rough patch of distortion in between, the beginning is mellow waves of synthesizer and later brings out a pieced together, seasick melody before getting noisy again with oscillators and metal objects.
Capote’s work isn’t exactly minimal but that influence is present. He focuses on constructing pieces from small fragments of sound. Though the two work from very different source material, Capote’s work might possibly sound like an isolated strand of Tomutonttu’s sound clutter. Sound placed into odd but clearly defined structures. A real pleasant jam.
Edition of 50 and packaged very cleanly, check it out.

Ugly Husbands – The Faith of the Family [Roll Over Rover]/Warm Climate – Edible Homes [Stunned]

I like it when people start crossing the line between “song-based” music and experimental stuff, especially when I get to hear it on tape. Being the ever blessed soul that I am, I have two very different but very good tapes that fit that description.
First of all, this Ugly Husbands tape comes in a book. I know that has been done before, but a tape-in-book has never made it to my hands before so I’m fucking impressed. Lucky for me the music is pretty sweet so it won’t just be a novelty item to show friends. UH is a project of Stewart Adams, one of the heads of Roll Over Rover along with Sean McCann and Dave McPeters. Through its 16 tracks The Faith of the Family flirts with lo-fi folk/pop as well as weird sound collage and warm drone stuff, and is often at its best when its synthesizing the two. “Pee-chee” is a couple of acoustic guitars plucked and strummed against radiating keyboard or organ and a bit of feedback. “The Daily Record of C.J. Whitman” by contrast is an uptempo number with lyrics, slashing electric guitar, live drums and a little steel guitar as well. “Mr. Tower’s Dead Trophy” returns to the fingerpicked acoustic guitar and lap steel, adding voice and a few UFO synth parts making their way in. “Spotswood Rice” is a minute long interlude of static and keyboard loops leading into “Off-Hand with Alwyn” the longest song at 9 minutes and one of the best as well. It works with the same palette as the songs before it, but Adams’s vocals are more surefooted and it features a lovely melody (well that’s pretty symptomatic of the tape as a whole.) The song stretches along so effortlessly that I hardly notice it’s a good deal longer than the total of the 4 songs that came before it. Definitely shows strength of songwriting. “Red Hot Hot Doggies” features lonesome vocals adrift in toy keyboard, organ and a recording of something of ski ball arcade or something like that before fading into a movie sample I can’t identify. “Zipper” features more weirdness, this time a cartoon spring noise (boing!) and a vaguely organ grinder/carnival-esque vibe overall. “Radiola” has train whistles, a creepy dude saying “Hey mysterious traveler” and then a really cool tapefucked piece of music. With “The Graves at Counselors” Adams moves back towards the song-like realm with spacey keyboard, echoing guitar and maybe some piano? It all blends to a nice, pulsing mush. “Lay Your Hands on Me” recalls the earlier songs somewhat but is a tad more strung out and has a good dose of fuzz applied/smeared across its face. “The Blob” is more sound collage leading into “The Great County Fair” and “Starved by Ulysses” which is the best back to back match-up on here. The former reminds me some of the Golden Hours tape that came out Not Not Fun forever ago, a cheap, warbly organ and vocal duet with a certain stiltedness that really adds to the flavor. A well-place accordion near the end really sells the track. “Starved by Ulysses” is a pretty great song as well, perhaps the best of the tape. It has a fantastic lilt and the elements all achieve a pretty perfect unity including a great distorted accordion outro. The guitar in “Sleepwalker” drifts over a field recording of croaking frogs and the title track closes the album. Adams ditches the guitar for multiple layers of warbling organ and it’s a real nice shift bringing the tape to a lovely endpoint. I really love that this thing was recorded to 4-track cause it imbues the album with such a presence of warmth and blissfulness. At times the songs can sound a bit same-y, but it’s pretty damn good for a debut, and in a way the similarity of a lot of the songs creates a unified effect more like a drone tape. Worth checking out.
Warm Climate is a project by LA-based Seth Kasselman. The first song “Lost Teeth/Organ Donor” is the one I keep spinning and it’s a good one to put up front cause it breaks down any expectations right away. The tape kicks off with straight ahead Bowie worship with a twisted, plaintive glam ballad before sliding into an unsettling keyboard interlude that seriously reminds me of the piece of music from the scene where Cillian Murphy goes nuts and starts killing people in 28 Days Later. That little keyboard part is my favorite detail of the tape, I wish it wasn’t so fleeting but there’s no time cause Kasselman jumps right into a sixties rave-up jam with go-go ghost dancers and all. Downright brilliant track. This leads to the “Organ Donor” portion I guess cause there’s a whole cavernous mess of pipe organ that surprisingly really grinds on you as well as being a bit soothing. A great looped melody emerges and it’s a fantastic sight to behold until Kasselman starts fiddling with the radio dial as it spews bits of speech and static. “Cave In” has a bunch of jangling whatsits and it almost feels like someone accidentally dubbed in a world music tape for minute. Weird sorts of drones creep in and it might be groovy if it weren’t so damn creepy. Free drumming, seasick groans and more pipe organ appear out of nowhere and the track turns into a haunted pirate ship/jazz club. “Edible Homes and Gardens/Synth Pads for Homeless” brings back vocals but this time it’s over a distorted drum machine and hollow, sustained vibraphone tones. The second part of the track switches gears dramatically into a soft lull of acoustic guitar, puttering synth beboopery before laying on the synth strings along with spliced samples. A drum machine lurches forth steeped in incredibly saturated fuzz and the tape takes on a Portishead/Burial type feel. The anguished samples (distressed people saying things spliced beyond recognition) are a nice contrast to the prettiness of the keyboards. “Devine Souffle & The Southern Approach” starts with vocals singing over drums for nearly a minute before the “full band” comes in. It’s a great midtempo track, and it reminds me a little bit of early/mid 90s British stuff like a more chilled out Manic Street Preachers, maybe? “Motion Picks Glaze” by contrast is an acoustic guitar led ballad with slowly spinning warble in the background. “Gross Polluter” finishes off the tape with a more maximalist approach some vaguely tribal drums and singing, fragments of horns and vocals. An epileptic clarinet gets things going before everything drops out leaving some strange garbled tape sounds. Clarinet returns in fiery free jazz form joined by rumbling free percussion. I’m glad Warm Climate, along with crews like Wasteland Jazz Unit and Helhesten, is sharing the clarinet’s violent side with the world cause it’s a damn cool instrument and doesn’t get a lot of credit. The record drifts on manipulated chimes to its close. I can’t think of anyone else doing stuff like this and doing a good job of it. Glam revivalism has a tendency to kinda blow but Kasselman takes the influence and makes it his own, covering staggering amounts of terrain with his songwriting. A ride worth taking over and over.
The Ugly Husbands tape is down to the last copies of an edition of 50 and Warm Climate is sadly but expectedly sold out at Stunned, though its an edition of 120 so check around at distros, one is bound to turn up. By the way, this is just another instance to add to the list of Stunned Records introducing me to a brilliant artist I had no idea existed. I feel like sending them a thank you note every time I hear one of their tapes.

Ophibre/Hunted Creatures – Split [Oph Sound]/Hunted Creatures – The Failure of Human Instincts [Dynamo!]

Benjamin Rossignol a.k.a. Ophibre sent the most recent release from his Oph Sound label, a split between himself and Ryan Emmett’s Hunted Creatures project.
Ophibre takes the first side with a single piece “A Harem of Moths.” It’s a great piece of electric drone working with relatively low pitches, and shifting and structuring the sounds very subtly. Definitely a piece of music for headphones. I’m not sure what Ophibre uses as a sound source but I’d venture a guess it’s a synth and/or guitar, and there’s lots of layers of it/them. The texture created is very full and strong, and higher frequencies are added as it looms along. It’s not really a melodic piece but there is a lot of effort taken to make the piece harmonically consistent, resulting in a gently, searing drone. This isn't harsh in the least but there’s a churning force and sharpness to it. A nice one to zone out to.
The Ophibre side is good but the Hunted Creatures side is phenomenal. With a breathy bass pulse, higher frequencies are manipulated and despite a melodic undercurrent, the piece is prone to violent outbursts of grisly feedback. Some instrument sounding like a cross between a bass drum and a guitar takes over with a thudding procession. Less ominous drones emanate thereafter resulting in a spacey, distorted flight. A looped keyboard melody and glistening feedback are used to great effect. Emmett exhibits a masterful conjuror’s hand, showing a sturdy sense of control over his sound, fitting lots of little pieces into a coherent fabric… and all this is done live. The second piece, "Himalaya of Skull,” is a bit more compressed, combining a number of the territories traversed in the previous live set. Buried keyboard melodies, swaths of noise, choral feedback, manipulated loops all brought together by overall sense of direction. For some odd reason the piece really sounds like trudging along through a forest of howling steampipes before stumbling down a rocky cliff. I don’t know, I gotta call it like I hear it. I’m so happy this side made it to cassette too cause it really brings out the warmth and aliveness of Emmett’s work here.
I also have a Hunted Creatures disc out on Ryan Emmett’s own Dynamo! imprint. As the record’s title might imply, it falls a touch on the bleaker side. “The Achievement of Nothing” observes crickets chirping for a fair amount of time. The first couple times I listened I just thought it was a field recording then I realized its actually a loop that Emmett manipulates very slightly at times and goes on to form a rhythmic basis for the piece before the feedback and fractured vocal loops kick in. “Accomplishment and Sentiment” features a distorted guitar loud and clear and barely audible little sounds collaged around it. A reversed guitar provides a nice counter-melody in the last minute. “Residual Man” sounds like it could be a live recording. The atmosphere is dingy and clanking which is offset by a mild but quite melodic loop that dies out after a minute. Things get more tumultuous until it’s all literally swallowed up by some white light sine tone. Distortion and a guitar/synth pad loop creep back in gradually to finish it off though. “Incapable of Flight” is one of stand-outs for sure. It is noticeably thicker and weightier than the previous tracks. There’s a loop of a guitar or keyboard or something buried under two tons of distortion. It feels massive and stony, and you can detect things going on underneath but can’t make them out completely. One of those times to relax and get steamrolled. A melody emerges near the end leaving a bit sweeter taste in the mouth. “Sleeping Under the Deadweight” is the most violent of the bunch, and after a rocky start, it begins blowin’ up a gale of harsh feedback. This baptism by fire leaves you primed for the finale, the magnificently titled “Mercy at the Hand of the Lord.” With a heavy bass drum and something sounding like a hybrid between a guitar and piano, the piece marches mournfully, sparsely forth. The track is the most emotionally affecting by far, and shows a really solid grasp on Emmett’s craft. There are only three elements here: a bass drum, the unidentified melodic instrument and silence. And with that limited palette, and a fairly repetitive structure, Emmett creates something at once lethargic, monolithic and beautiful. A really impressive finale.
I’d say the tape might be the preferred, and I think more recent, example of Emmett’s work to seek out (and you get to check Ophibre then too) but there are still a number of great examples in the CD-r as well. The tape comes packaged rather elaborately with textured, white cardboard—which release info is printed on—wrapped around a case with wraparound see-through paper cover with geometric print and then tape labels with an even cooler print. Top marks go to Ben for his Oph design skills. The CD-r comes in a black digipak. Both releases are still available as far as I can tell.

Super Fun 3" Round-up

I had a tiny stack of my favorite kind of CD-r and I decided to lump them all together for a super fun round-up...
Bearses – The Prettiest Girl I Ever Saw [Hymns]
Not sure if this band’s name is pronounced like “bare-zees” or “bee-arses” but that’s beside the point. This 3incher, from Florida label Hymns, is a crumpled up mass of static spread across five tracks. There are samples of stuff buried deep down but they’re mangled beyond recognition by incredibly thick, saturated distortion and pitch shifting. Near the send of the first track a bit of carribean dance/pop stuff (maybe?) is barely audible through the muck leading into flashes of slowed radio DJ babble, heavily rhythmic crunching distortion and garbled vocal tones in the second piece. It’s nice having bands like Bearses to remind us just how much a fuck-ton of fuzz can morph one sound into something entirely different——namely magnanimously crusty squalls. The third track brings up the curtain a bit letting shards of distortion interact with the source material (a slowed down, rambling folk tune) instead of smothering it. It’s a well-placed melodic break in the middle of the record. The fourth track is interesting as well. There’s plenty of distortion but bits and pieces of gongs, bells and ethnic percussion poke through at certain intervals. The fifth track uses a lot hi-pitched freakouts amongst sloshed zombie slurs——a nice little kick in the teeth to remember them by.
For people, like me, who keep the radio dial placed equidistantly between stations or for fans of listening to records at the wrong speed played through twelve Metal Zones.
Arklight – Nolo Contendre [Ruralfaune]
A nice companion piece to that last CD-r is this Arklight 3”. Two tracks making up 24 total minutes of relentlessly chugging, bludgeoning noise. This is my first introduction to non-song-based Arklight and it’s pretty damn good. The title-track builds and builds on a pummeling loop/drum machine, while specks of static stagger in and out. They play around with the tempo a bit and offset the bass pulse with brief, searing jets of feedback. The track just keeps slumming, being tweaked here and there but mainly just riding the domineering beat. With about four minutes to go friendlier instruments are introduced——mellow, dirty guitar and live drums——and the track unwinds. “Rakkasans” starts up with a speedy, nearly techno drum machine. This track isn’t quite as noisy as its predecessor but it dishes out its fair share of feedback blurring the drum machine into a seizuring piece of equipment. Human shouts are coming from somewhere but they’re almost sensed more than they are actually heard through the putrid, filthy layers of fuzz. Traces of live drums are evident but they’re drowned in the bog like everything else. Straight up mildewed fury.
Single Indian Tear – The Black Category [No Label]
Moving into the easier-on-the-ears stuff, Single Indian Tear (the name ostensibly referring to the crying Indian/litter monitor from the PSA) are an Iowa City based duo and this 11 minute track is heavy on the synths. Not dreamy synths either, they seem to work with a bit more of a Kraftwerk mindset of loving their machines for the machine sounds they make rather than trying to disguise them as the ocean or the heavens. A variety of synth-tones are employed here from squelchy, filtered bass and tinkling belltones to static-y pulses and ray gun sounds. The track hits a nice stride around four minutes in where it settles into its skin and slowly cycles through the array of sounds at its disposal. There’s a three note motif that starts the track out and it returns in the second half but surrounded by creepy, “cat meow” sounds. Weird, dude. The last minute is a toy piano melody plinking across inter-galactic deep space synth and radio waves.
Sean McCann – Background Sound Two [No Label]
This 3” is another long, lovely piece by San Francisco’s Mr. McCann. I know his stuff is always lovely but this thing is one of the lovelier ones. This would be meditative if it wasn’t so immediately, palpably beautiful and in a strange way, saddening. There’s a wonderful mournful quality to the sounds here. A pretty melody twinkles, emanating from a far corner of the stereosphere as you just kinda drift along in a synthy sea. Not too much to say about this other than I’m enjoying the ride. McCann shifts incredibly subtly between ideas keeping the piece entirely engaging over its 22 minutes. I like how the melody at the beginning drifts away but makes a sly, unexpected comeback in the last couple minutes.
But why am I telling you this? This thing was given out with orders from McCann’s label Roll Over Rover and is all gone. Furthermore, it was limited to an utterly ridiculous 22 copies. That almost makes me angry there’s so few of these around. This piece deserves a reissue as a side of a split LP or tape or something like that. Hopefully some good soul reads this and takes it upon him or her self to do just that. It’s too goddam good to drift into obscurity.
KRGA – Thousands [Debacle]
The theme of this double 3” is the first disc concentrates on predominately acoustic arrangements while the second disc brings on the electronic elements. The first track “Thousand Armed” is rather nice with plenty of layers of acoustic guitar and hand percussion and then bits of flute and pump organ flowing by underneath. It doesn’t establish too much atmosphere but it’s really melodious and easy on the ears. “Thousand Headed” is more brooding with a lot reverb and an effected acoustic guitar and patches of vocals and other sounds stitched in. The first disc’s final track, “Thousand Hearted,” exceeds the combined length of the previous tracks. It’s a real nicely unfolding piece with a couple of dueling guitars over chiming bells and a reed organ that quietly leads the track. That reed organ is the real key here cause it glues all the clanging, jangly percussion, random bits of whistling melodies and other sounds with the acoustic guitar digressions making a real beautiful, dynamic and effortlessly flowing track. My favorite piece here.
The second disc opens with its longest track “Thousand Beaked” which after a minute of oscillator doohickery steadies itself and glides along with burbling tones. You can see some similarity between this disc and the first. Both feature multiple layers of sounds and use ever changing clusters of notes on top of sustained tones. The piece shifts often throughout its 11 minutes, hitting upon some nice, even pretty spots, but it doesn’t quite have the invisible guiding hand leading it coherently, seamlessly on its course as in “Thousand Hearted.” The second half is a quite a pleasantly buzzing bed of synths. “Thousand Eyed” is also a bed of buzzing synths but not one you’d want to sleep in, and the buzzing is more akin to angry wasps. “Thousand Horned” has some pseudo-bowed sounds and a pairing of slippery, blipping melodies. A digital fog fans out and overtakes the piece by its end.
3” CD-rs get the shaft a lot of times when it comes to packaging, but the Thousands packaging is clean and classy with two printed CD-rs mounted on the inside of double-sided cardstock that folds closed like a book.